Let’s start at the beginning. What was your initial inspiration for KIDKATAT?

After having Teagan, my daughter, I was overwhelmed and surprised by all the “things” out there that:

Were unnecessary

Poorly designed

Did nothing to help the everyday busy parent

KIDKATAT helps parents by doing the research and work to choose what products and services are the best, saving their time to focus on what matters most.

How long have you been in business?

KIDKATAT is just in it’s infancy – I would say in baby terms we are 3 months old. We are full of ideas that are waiting to be unleashed. Start following us as we grow, it’s going to be a great adventure!
What do you think sets you apart from others in your field?

KIDKATAT is not focused on showing you endless reviews on multiple products that you may or may not need. Everything we feature at KIDKATAT is approved and vetted. This means less choosing and time spent on your part researching giving you more time for the things you want to focus on.

As we all know, finding property in New York is a process. How did you find your current place? What was on your wishlist?

Yes, we were looking for our current place for 2 years! 20 rejected offers later, all going well over asking, we actually decided to try to make our one bedroom work and live a very life edited life. It was then when our current apartment came on the market. We owe it to our real estate agent for getting us in first! Sometimes things just work out. I am very grateful.

What are some of your favorite things about New York City and your neighborhood in particular?

Where do I begin?? The main thing I love about living NYC is that I can walk everywhere or use public transportation. It’s so nice to just walk outside your door to get a cup of coffee or run to the store without having to deal with getting in a car (especially with a young child – no wrangling in and out of a car seat). Amazing food and coffee options! In my neighborhood, UWS, it’s central park. Every time I go for my run around the reservoir, I feel so grateful to have central park as my backyard. It never gets old and I’ve been living here for 15 years.

How would you describe your personal style? How does fashion influence your interior design style?

My personal style is casual with pops of color. My interior design style is very similar. I actually attempted to go for a more subdued color palette when I first started designing my space, but quickly found it just wasn’t “me”. If you look at the hallway color and artwork in my living room, you will understand my style very well.
Where do you shop for affordable home decor and unique finds? Or, how did you stick to a budget for decor and furnishings?

I definitely had a budget for decor and furnishings and found a good mix of high end and low end work well to balance the money. On the high end I would splurge on key pieces like my dining room table and built ins but then I would make compromises and use ikea budget friendly furniture creatively (like on my bedroom wall – those are all ikea).

I find that if you mix high and low in the right way, it will all look high end!

I really like West Elm lately, their designs are right on point and they are affordable. For unique finds, I search through Pinterest for ideas and then hunt them down online.

Is there a piece in your apartment that holds special value to you? Why?

As I try to live a more minimalist lifestyle, focusing less on “stuff” and more on experience, not that many physical things hold too much value anymore. That being said, if I had to choose one thing in my home, it would be the poster in my daughter’s room from the peanuts movie I recently worked on. Many of my co-workers, including the director signed it for her and I just love the message “Dream Big”. It encompasses everything I want for my daughter and family. An inspiring message that is surrounded by support & love (friends signatures and notes for her).

Where do you see yourself and KIDKATAT five years from now?

I see myself and KIDKATAT being the go to resource for all things parenting within 5 years. KIDKATAT is also planning to come out with their own line, KIDKATAT Originals, so stay tuned for that!

When you think of the Slate service, what 3 words come to mind?

Convenient, smart, luxurious.

When is your favorite part about the Slate experience?

Being able to leave the house in the morning without frantically trying to tidy up (picking up toys, cleaning dishes, making beds) .. and then magically coming home after a long day at work to find it all done!

What are some of your favorite things to do with the extra hour of your life now NOT spent keeping your apartment looking flawless?

Working on KIDKATAT (haha.. ). Favorite thing with that extra hour is definitely spending time with my daughter, every minute is so precious and I am so grateful for Slate’s services. The extra moments I get with my daughter are priceless!

Let’s start at the beginning. What was your first job out of college and how did that get you where you are today?

I spent most of my time studying neuropsychology in college and I didn’t want to pursue that after I graduated. I was gravitated to social media. It was new and the experts were Millennials. After a few internships, being part of the MTV TJ competition and exploring NYC, I landed a gig at a creative agency that started my career ascent.

As we all know, finding property in New York is a process. How did you find your current place? What was on your wish list?

I’m super picky when it comes to living in NYC. I need a place that can fit all my clothing and things (there’s a lot) and I need to live with someone I trust. My best friend’s college roommate was looking for a roommate at the time I wanted to move. The apartment was big enough and he was chill so it worked! I’m now 4 years in my apt.

What are some of your favorite things about New York City and your neighborhood in particular?

I love that there is always something new. You turn a corner and there is a new building, new restaurant, new exhibit, new bar, etc. You are always exploring in NYC. My neighborhood is pretty residential so it’s quiet. I’m always on the go so it’s nice to come home and relax.

What was your decor section process like?

I got a lot of my inspiration from Pinterest. I love gray! I know sounds boring, but I love the greyscale spectrum. I aimed to keep my room mild with grey but have pops of color throughout. I chose teal and orange as my color selections.

I also themed my bedroom as “cities.” All around my room you will find art that depict my favorite cities and ones I have visited.

How would you describe your personal style? How does fashion influence your interior design style?

My style is always evolving. I think that’s a must. If you are stuck in the same style forever, you’ll be in a rut. Right now, I’m all about edgy, classic looks. I love a good button-down but I will pair it with ripped denim and leather accents.

My style is minimal and so is my décor. I don’t need over-the-top items to make a statement. My personality is enough.

Where do you shop for affordable home decor and unique finds? Or, how did you stick to a budget for decor and furnishings?

A lot of my framed pieces are artwork I created or friends created for me. Printing is not that expensive. Plus, I get inspo from Pinterest DIY projects. The bottles around my apartment are those I spray painted to match my décor. All of them were consumed by me.

Is there a piece in your apartment that holds special value to you? Why?

My personal photos in frames are my favorite. It’s the memories I’ve loved so much that I’ve wanted to capture them in a photo. I change them out every now and then to give a refresh. I wouldn’t have the life I have without the people I surround myself with.

Where do you see yourself and Real Guys Wear five years from now?

I hope thriving and much much more than what it is now. I’m constantly looking into ways to change things up. I hope it has evolved into something completely different!

When you think of the Slate service, what 3 words come to mind?

Organized, clean and prompt.

When is your favorite part about the Slate experience?

I love walking into my home and knowing it’s clean. It’s one less thing I have to worry about and it gives me more time to enjoy my downtime.

What are some of your favorite things to do with the extra hour of your life now NOT spent keeping your apartment looking flawless?

SLEEP! Since I’m mostly home at night, that extra hour goes to sleep!

Name one friend or colleague that you think would love Slate the most. We’ll gift him/her a full week on the house!

Thanks for agreeing to be our first Client Showcase at Slate! We’re so excited to be featuring you.

The feeling is mutual! I’m a HUGE Slate fan and am happy to share the love!

You’re known for so many incredible jewelry designs, one of the most popular being the Map Necklace. What inspired you to launch that product?

The idea for the Map Necklace came to me when my little sister was studying abroad in Europe and I was trying to think of a unique gift idea for her. I made a Map Necklace of where we grew up in Connecticut, that way she could have a little piece of home wherever she went.

So many of your urban customers choose their first NYC apartment as the address for their map necklace. What does this apartment mean to you?

This apartment is a room of my own. It’s the first place where I paid my own rent, where I launched my company, and it was here, inside these four walls, that I really became, and will continue to become, myself.

What is your favorite part about your NYC apartment and why?
I love the color of the foyer. It’s a bright, robin’s egg blue, so as soon as you walk into the apartment, you are instantly happy. I also place a bowl of lemons and oranges next to the door. That way, the apartment has a citrus note as soon as you walk in.

What is your favorite piece of furniture and why?

My favorite piece of furniture is my Society Social Bar Cart, namely because it’s made, with love, by one of my closest friends and inspirations, Roxy Te Owens. Your bar car is an extension of yourself. From the chocolate bourbon to the book of Vintage Cocktails, you instantly have a sense of who that person is.

So, we heard dinner parties are a thing for you. What’s your favorite thing to make (or, ahem, order)?

I love making fresh vegetable side dishes. Gwyneth Paltrow’s It’s All Good is great for that. Here are two of my favorite recipes:

But when plan A fails though, Keste’s gluten-free pizza is definitely my go-to. It’s the only gluten-free pizza I’ve ever had that doesn’t taste like cardboard.

When you think of the Slate service, what 3 words come to mind?

Magical, trustworthy, and professional.

When is your favorite part about the Slate experience?

I had Slate come to clean before Style Me Pretty came over for a photo shoot of my apartment. Day 1, Slate made my apartment photo-ready. But in order for my apartment to look picture perfect, I stuffed EVERYTHING under the sun into my closet. The real magic happened for me on day 2, when I apologetically showed my Keeper the closet in question. I came back from work, and not only was that closet PERFECT, but the one next to it was as well. Slate is a company that goes the extra mile to make you feel like your apartment should be in Style Me Pretty everyday. It’s like living in a hotel room that just so happens to have all of my stuff in it!

Speaking of hotels, where is your favorite one and why?

Hands down, Villa San Michele outside of Florence. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been lucky enough to visit.

What are some of your favorite things to do with the extra hour of your life now NOT spent keeping your apartment looking flawless?

Hot yoga, the ClassPass class I should have booked, dinner with friends in West Village… the world is my oyster!

You have a huge social following. What other some of the other designers that inspire you?

Aww, shucks! Makin’ me blush. Roxy & Inslee have basically taught me how to use Instagram, so I owe any following I have to them. I also love Loren Hope’s designs and feed. Catbird is a close second.

Name one friend or colleague that you think would love Slate the most. We’ll gift him/her a full week on the house!

How many innovative models in the fashion industry can you think of? Amazon Fashion, Rent the Runway, Moda Operandi and Gilt are all models that have changed, improved, the way we consume fashion. There are so many brilliant minds thinking of better ways to sell clothes.

What happens to all those clothes after the tags come off? They have to be cleaned. All of them. Many times. Despite the fact that we only buy clothes once but clean them many many times, there has been much more innovation in the selling than in the cleaning stage.

Maybe the cleaning stage gets less attention because there is no need to innovate; clothes get cleaned now, right? So why bother?

We should bother because there is a tremendous amount of wasted human capital in the way we clean clothes now.

On one hand, dry cleaning facilities, by and large, are not places you would want to work in. Most are usually poorly lit and ventilated, cramped, and disorganized. A few would make sweatshops in China look like executive offices. Most tasks at dry cleaning facilities are repetitive, boring, and physically demanding. On the other hand, dry clean shop owners are being squeezed by landlords and suppliers pushing prices up, and from consumers, who are unwilling to pay higher prices for the same “lowest common denominator” service. If you spend five minutes inside a dry cleaning store or production facility you will realize that many of the jobs there are dead-end jobs.

We are doing ourselves a collective disservice by continuing to feed this incredibly wasteful cleaning machine. The biggest asset we have is our human capital and we are squandering it off with every minute a person has to apply a tag with a staple to a shirt.

We had very similar conditions in the clothing manufacturing stage a few years ago and instead of innovating there as we did in the selling stage, we shipped that problem overseas. We can’t ship our clothes overseas every time we need to clean them.

(making | selling | cleaning picture)

Stephanie Clifford published a fascinating article in the New York Times a few months ago about the renaissance of U.S. textile companies. She writes: “Where Mr. Winthrop relies on labor — the cutting and sewing of the sweatshirts, which he does in five factories in California and North Carolina — is where the costs jump up. That costs his company around $17 for a given sweatshirt; overseas, he says, it would cost $5.50. But truth be told, labor is not a big ingredient in the manufacturing uptick in the United States, textiles or otherwise. Indeed, the absence of high-paid American workers in the new factories has made the revival possible. “Most of our costs are power-related,” said Dan Nation, a senior Parkdale executive.”

What’s enabling the future of manufacturing in the US is automation; machines doing things that humans used to do.

So we are applying automation in production and innovation in customer service, merchandising and distribution.

If we are applying these two game-changers to the manufacturing and selling of clothes, why are we not applying it to the longest and least likely to be outsourced stage?

Technology has come a long way since dry cleaning became an “industry”. There are many stages of the cleaning process that have been “automated”, however, we are still a long way from cleaning clothes the same way we produce Tesla cars.

I’ve dedicated over eight years of my life thinking about this problem. I started a clothes cleaning service in 2005 picking up clothes in my bicycle. I build a 4,000 square foot dry cleaning facility in the middle of the West VIllage of Manhattan and put together a team of incredibly skilled people to run it and clean thousands of high-fashion garments every month (Rent the Runway operated out of our facility for their first two years). I partnered with FedEx to offer a nationwide pickup and delivery service.

Build a fully-automated dry cleaning facility that services customers through home pick up and delivery.

I’ve raised over $100,000 of the $350,000 required to build this new dry cleaning facility. Getting the grant from Chase would enable us to build our model of the way clothes should be cleaned.

I’m a member of The Partnership for a New American Economy, a coalition of business owners and politicians advocating for immigration reform. I am a Board member at Qualitas of Life Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that provides 100% free financial education to Hispanic immigrants and their families in New Yokr in order to foster their financial security and standard of life.

This new dry cleaning facility and distribution model is a step in the right direction but there is still a lot more innovation possible, REQUIRED, in this industry. How different will the world be when we start applying the previously-wasted human capital into really productive, exciting enterprises?